Strategy & Budget

Each year, our team engages in a planning process to reflect on what we have learned, reaffirm our mission and values, set goals for our strategy and approaches, and establish a grantmaking budget.

 

2025 Strategic Direction

Many families and organizations enter this year facing uncertainty about how day-to-day state and federal policy developments will affect their stability and well-being. Amid these changes, we remain dedicated to our mission and focus on basic needs and safety net services, especially for the children and families who are most impacted. Our role as a steadfast funding partner to the nonprofits trusted by the community will continue through multi-year general operating support grants. We also recognize the importance of being responsive to the moment by listening and adapting as we prioritize additional support for capacity building.

Past Years' Reports

We maintained our commitment to provide partners with long-term flexible support with our regular grantmaking budget of ~$20M and distributed an additional ~$20M in COVID-19 responsive grants. This significant responsive grantmaking resulted in one-time shifts to the data that represents our usual practices. For example, where we usually award more multi-year grants than one-year grants for our long-term partners, all of our responsive grants to our partners in 2020 and 2021 were awarded as one-year grants.

Our responsive grantmaking included targeted quarterly grants to organizations providing food, essential supplies, cash, and rental assistance, or legal aid to families as well as flexible grants to support both families and our partners. This dual focus acknowledged both the families seeking support in higher numbers across the year and the various short-and long-term organizational needs of nonprofits that capably pivoted to meet community need. 

We also responded to aligned collaborative funding opportunities, including: 

  • The California Immigrant Resilience Fund, which provides direct cash assistance to families who are ineligible for COVID-19 federal and state safety net and relief programs. 

  • Capacity grants to our partners managing Undocufunds in acknowledgment of associated administrative expenses. 

  • The Together Toward Health initiative, which funds local community-based organizations that provide education, awareness, and outreach to populations disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

  • Capacity grants to our partners participating in the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) in acknowledgment of the additional capacity required to enroll clients.

2021 Grant Data

Grants Paid
800

Unique Grantees
285

Payment Range
$2,250 - $1,000,000

Average Grant Payment
$51,914

Grant Payments
$41,531,250

Payments